All of the excellent stories above serve to illustrate in technicolor the dilemma faced by anyone trying to sell music retail. Back in the day I sold pianos and organs at one time and then hifi gear at another, and I confronted the contradiction. Even remaining record stores have to face it all the time. I’ll describe two intolerable situations:
1) A music/instrument/hifi store is being run by just 2 or 3 people, all of whom are busy with customers or housekeeping chores. None of them are making much above minimum and all of them have been there since 9AM when two people walked in and then left without buying anything. The phone rings occasionally but who’s to answer? If they’re on commission, they may not have had a paycheck recently or have run up a tidy debt to the boss to repay the "draw" they've been paid against future earnings. I figured out that a commissioned salesman in a failing store will inevitably earn what amounts to belowa minimum wage! "This isn’t a concert hall!", I remember a colleague spitting after spending 2 hours with a classical lover who left without buying anything. Playing a Steinway or a Hifi for a half-hour to entertain a man whose wife is in a nearby store rubs the wrong way. The inevitable result is retail burnout. It occurs to sales staff in any retail business and unfortunately afflicts long-term employees first. Then the infection spreads and turnover results. I had a sales manager in a high-pressure TV store tell me, "Nobody drives all the way down I-35, looks for the turnoff, negotiates the access road to the parking lot and then walks all the way across that lot to get to our store just ’to look’!"
2) A customer walks into a music store to buy a few accessories and look at a possible new pre-amp plus advice. Should he go tubes? Separate power supply? But everyone is busy: in the back, with a customer, cleaning up Aisle 6, in the loo. Finally he is offered a fixed appointment to play the Steinway, or the new Magicos at leisure the following day.
Who’s wrong!? It’s a cycle of abuse. Any really experienced retail salesperson will gladly ask you to "Walk a mile in my shoes." This dilemma exemplifies the tensions that have accellerated retail’s nosedive. RETAIL BRICK/MORTAR HIFI IS DEAD!!
D-E-A-D! When the customer/salesman relationship turns adversarial, it’s all over! This does not bode well for a nation experienceing late stage capitalism.
The slope is slippery and we’ll see how steep. Only the Golden Rule can save us!
